John Brown was a radical (white) abolitionist who encouraged violent slave revolts and was a veteran of Bleeding Kansas, the deadly fight to determine whether slavery should be legalized in Kansas. On October 16, 1859, Brown and a group of followers attacked and captured the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia (today, West Virginia), from which they planned to supply slaves with arms for an insurrection. Brown and his cohorts were captured on October 18, tried for murder and treason on October 27-30, and executed on December 2, 1859. John Brown’s raid was a polarizing event in a nation already suffering from increasing sectional tensions centering on the issue of slavery. This cartoon of a slaveowner arming his slaves to fight against Brown reflects the artist’s view that outside attacks on the South united whites and blacks in defense of the region.